In the United States, an estimated 25.6 million me (25.2 percent) and 22.6 million women (20.7 percent) are smokers. 70 percent of all these smokers say that they want to quit, but only about 5 percent succeed. Every eight seconds, someone in the world dies due to tobacco. This translates into 450 people an hour; 10,800 people a day; 3,942,000 people a year. Each year more Americans die from smoking related diseases than die from aids, drug abuse, car accidents, and homicide combined. It has been responsible for 16 percent (or 1 in 6) of all deaths in the U.S. each year.

Smoking can cause many different kinds of diseases. Some of the most common diseases caused by smoking would be, emphysema; when the lungs turn black from the tar in the cigarettes, and the air sacs inside the lungs loose their elasticity, making it harder and harder to breath.

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A victim of emphysema eventually dies from suffocation. Lung cancer; tar from smoking begins to collect on the mucus membrane, paralyzing the cilia (hair like structures), that otherwise keep air passageways clean. Cancer develops in the lungs when to many unnecessary cells begin to grow. These cells grow with time, eventually causing mass tissue to form, otherwise known as a tumor. Gangrene; which is the death of tissue due to lack of oxygen in the blood. Smoking contributes to gangrene because it decreases the amount of available oxygen. This happens when hemoglobin carries carbon monoxide instead of oxygen. Gangrene can result in the loss of a limb(s), fingers, and toes. These diseases are just some of the health problems smoking causes but there are many more, such as, gingivitis, chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, osteoporosis, stroke and heart disease.

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